


The tales of a pink Starfish

by hoshinokonpeito



Category: Free!
Genre: And a lot of pain, Angst, But it's obvious, F/M, M/M, RinHaru in the background, Toraichi's death, Unrequited Love, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 17:44:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1991988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoshinokonpeito/pseuds/hoshinokonpeito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time that Gou saw a starfish was when she was four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The tales of a pink Starfish

The first time that Gou saw a starfish was when she was four.

It was an immobile yellowish thing with some traces in purple, which seemed to sleep in the bottom of the bucket that her father brought to home filled with water, and her brother and she were amazed by the echinoderm, until their mother started to get mad because they had to take a bath before to dinner.

"It's called starfish" explained their father in a tender voice when the family was sitting around the table, and the woman sighed because she was sure the trending topic in her house would be that damn living creature for a couple of weeks, at least. "They are marine invertebrates"

Gou didn't have a clue about what that information meant, and neither her brother, but they didn't care when Toraichi's voice made them travel to a fantastic place under the sea — where Momi, the starfish, belonged — that night, replacing the usual bedtime stories by information about their new friend.

The man was a fisherman with some knowledge about the ocean — they believed that no one knew more than him, Rin still is sure about it — which was enough to keep them entertained until the two siblings fell asleep, dreaming with Momi and the wonderful adventures that she would have when she was released from that bucket... At the next morning, the only thing that she remembered was that starfishes sometimes lose their arms.

Ayano never hated being wrong so much as she did a couple of days later, when her husband was taken by the sea and no one remembered Momi, the starfish, which should have been the main topic of lively conversations instead of the silence.

In front of her father's grave, the little red haired girl wondered if the pain in her chest was similar to Momi's pain when she lost an arm and she imagined herself as a little pinkish starfish with cute whirls in bright red — with a stump in the point where should be the fifth limb.

Gou was eleven when she read that some species of starfish have the ability to regenerate lost arms.

It had been difficult for them, but the Matsuoka family started to smile again though no one was going to arrive every evening — at nine o'clock, to greet his wife and his children, and to talk about starfishes until they fell asleep. Her brother was working hard in swimming in order to achieve their father's dream, but he still took care of her and Gou spent the weekend after the competition making him and Sousuke two perfect ladies to have a tea party with her plushies and her.

Rin had a similar tone to their father's voice when he was leaning against the door's frame while she was brushing her teeth — his eyes lighten up when he talked about someone called Haruka. Gou spat the toothpaste in the sink, avoiding to ask his brother about to tell her a story wherein a pinkish starfish without an arm was silently healing in the deep of the sea, and tried to imagine how Nanase looks but the only thing that popped into her mind was a mermaid.

The winter got colder when her big brother finally moved to their grandmother's house, in his determination to chase the mermaid called Nanase Haruka and her beautiful style of swimming, and Gou could feel the warm tears running down her reddish cheeks — but the pain squeezing her chest wasn't enough to make her starfish lose another limb, perhaps because Rin's lips pressed against her forehead were able to calm her down.

The first week without him, Gou slept in the same bed as her mother and they talked about everything — Sousuke getting taller than Rin, the mysterious case about Nanase Haruka and girly things like how the anual competition of bodybuilders had a lower level in comparison to previous years — until her eyelids closed on their own.

It was sunday evening at the moment that Ayano found her daughter sleeping in her own bedroom — her little arms wrapped around a wrinkled piece of paper, where it had drawn a messy, pink starfish, covered with bright-red lines that resembled veins running across the irregular shape of the drawing... Gou had a dream where she heard the muffled sound of someone sobbing, but the little girl is too tired to open her eyes and realize that it was her mother who was crying.

Before she could notice, it had already been a whole month since Rin moved to their grandmother's place and Sousuke had stopped coming — "which is normal" said her mother when Gou asked about why, "because he's not your boyfriend... Or is he?" the woman added, teasingly, just because she knew that her daughter's face was going to match the shade of her hair.

Yamazaki was handsome — shiny black hair, amazing teal eyes and thick lips that drew sweet smiles... He would be a very good-looking male in a few years, but he was a kid in that moment and Gou wasn't interested to be involved in a romantic relationship.

"No!" Gou's laughter filled the kitchen when she answered her attempt to make her little lady uncomfortable. The younger Matsuoka kept trying to cover her face with her tiny hands when Ayano sighed in relief, considering that she didn't have enough courage to explain her that sometimes the people had to say goodbye for an unknown amount of time.

Gou still was eleven when she wondered how starfishes could fall in love with their partners.

"My name is Tachibana Makoto" were the first words she heard from him, before pointing the black haired kid who remained quietly at his side; "and he is Haru-chan" the boy called Makoto introduced his friend, making him complain against the honorific he used while presenting him to Matsuoka's little sister — regardless the ambiguity of their names, they were males.

However, the girl didn't pay any attention to Makoto's charming smile or how amusing was the contrast between his large height and the gentle, warm aura around him because her gaze was focused on Nanase — enraptured by the subtle shape of his muscles, Gou understood why his big brother was captivated by that elegant way of swimming.

At that age, children don't care care about trivial matters such as gender — with eleven years, Gou didn't have time to question why Haruka was a male instead of the mermaid that she imagined, considering that it was more important to her how big Rin's smile grew when he passed his arm around Haruka's bare shoulders.

Nevertheless; when the day came to an end and they said goodbye, the kid called Makoto was smiling tenderly again: the red haired girl didn't know if it was because the sunset's light was bathing his face or because his eyes were prettier when she looked at them closer, but she was convinced that she found her Charming Prince.

Gou tried to fix her cute dress with her hands trembling due to her nervousness on the way back to the car, while Rin kept chatting about a shining light under the water that he couldn't stop looking — "geez", she pouted, sitting on car's back seat, "you're the main character of a shoujo manga, big brother!" and Ayano bursted in laughs.

She wasn't sure if a starfish can bleed, but hers dyed in deep crimson the crystalline sea of her imagination when Rin told them officially about his decision to go overseas during dinner: his resolution ripped off another pink arm when she had yet to recover from the first limb... A place like Australia sounded too far away for her to reach.

Hitting the table with the palm of her little hands, Gou stood up in order to yell at him a "I hate you!" that made Kyo to cover her mouth while gasping as if the little girl said one of those ugly words that they were forbidden to use in a conversation, but she didn't step back. "I really, really hate you!" she uttered with teary eyes.

They talked only when Rin had to go; at the airport, she squeezed his hand a little bit harder and didn't released her hold on him until her brother disappeared through the boarding gate — seeing him go was overwhelming, so so much that she forgot about the starfishes... Perhaps it was the regret, eating away in her chest, accusing Gou of being too arrogant to have a good time with her brother before his departure.

Sometimes the little girl remembered the mermaid called Haruka, who actually was a merman, and those gentle green eyes that took away her heart — although she never met them again... Her brother returned for first time in Christmas, when the weather was as cold as his expression, and she could feel that something was wrong at the moment his lips pressed against her forehead but Gou hugged tighter the starfish-shaped plushie that Rin gave to her, without saying a word.

But she wanted to find him — that kid, Nanase Haruka — because the black haired boy seemed to be the only one capable of making Rin see again the lights under water that he cherished... What a pity that his little sister didn't have a clue about where start looking for his shining, and the older redhead was gone again.

In fact, there have to pass few years more before Rin's genuine smile emerges back in his lips — nowow that the old team has reunited thanks to Rei, the past seemed to be a bad dream... Sousuke was back as a part of Samezuka's team, Mikoshiba's little brother and Nitori were crying in the graduation of their seniors and everyone promised to meet once in a year at least.

Gou was seventeen when she found that, even if they didn't have light on their own, starfishes could shine.

It's the day before Makoto goes to study at Tokyo's University that the red eyed teenager finds the courage to confess to him what she has been hiding for years — that he had been her first and only love, the person she has fallen in love with again because Makoto is everything that the red haired girl wanted... Because the brown haired teenager is a responsible and compassionate person — he seems to be so worried just because her hands are trembling... — and unexpectedly adorable.

Gou thinks that it's about time to get something back from a life time of having everything she loved taken away, so she never visualized in her mind the scenario that she is watching right now: the surprise is written all over Makoto's face moments before it becomes a verbal apology — "I'm sorry..." he mumbles under his breath, and the girl had been working at his side as manager long enoguh to know what those words mean, but she doesn't say anything because Gou needs to hear it.

In the end, the red haired teenager laughs because the former captain of Iwatobi's swimming club is wearing a painful expression on his face — he seems to be the one who was rejected instead of her — and Gou has to stand over her tiptoes to kiss Makoto's cheek to make his worries fade away — she's a strong girl, she's going to be okay and he's a good guy who deserves to go to Tokyo without regrets.

Gou is eighteen when she concludes that her pink, tiny starfish may not belong to the species that regenerate their limbs, and she promises to herself that she'll try to take care of the two arms that remain.

**Author's Note:**

> It was supposed to be a drabble based in the daily theme — starfish, if someone didn't notice, lol — but, somehow, I carried the plot too far away from the first idea... And I ended publishing this piece of my drabble collection like an independent piece due to the quantity of the words — it's insane! No way that someone can call this drabble, to be honest, because it's too long.
> 
> My idea was to write a story about Matsuoka's sibling and their father — something related to family bonding, a cute thing about how Toraichi and Ayano (the name that I chose for Matsuoka's mom) or something in the same line — because I'm extremely attached to this family, but I got a heartbreaking story about Gou... And her development as a person? I'm not sure about how classify the plot, but it was truly interesting to write from her perspective, even if the end has been sad.
> 
> High☆Speed! is something that I have to read by my own, so take this as a canon divergence.
> 
> As always,my awesome sister Karra took the responsibility to read this — fixing all my mistakes, helping me with some sentences... She's an angel, you know? I'm so lucky to have her at my side, supporting me with every crazy thing that I want to try.
> 
> (By the way... I tried very hard to avoid implying RinHaru, I swear! But if you want to write chibiRin in character, it's impossible to ignore his massive crush in Haru orz)


End file.
